In the processing of chickens, turkeys and other types of birds through a poultry processing plant for defeathering, evisceration, cut-up and packaging, and for eventual delivery to the retail user, such as a grocery store or fast food restaurant, it is desirable to perform as many of the processing steps as possible with automated machinery. It is important to minimize the manual handling of the birds so as to minimize the expense of processing the birds, as well as to insure uniform processing of the birds.
The prior art poultry processing systems have hung birds by their legs from shackles so that the birds are moved in series in an inverted attitude by a series of shackles along an overhead conveyor system, and the various processing functions have been performed on the birds as they move along the line, such as evisceration, weighing, sorting, and cut-up. However, at certain points in the conveyor system it is desirable to transfer the birds from one conveyor line to another. For example, after the birds have been eviscerated, they can be weighed, and then transferred to separate cut-up lines in accordance with the weights of the birds. Also, the birds may be transported through the evisceration and weighing processes at six inch centers between adjacent birds, whereas the cut-up line may require that the birds be spaced at twelve inch centers. Moreover, the evisceration and weighing lines may operate at a different speed than the cut-up lines.
In the past, the transfer of birds from one conveyor line to another was manually performed by an operator retrieving the birds removed from the shackles of the eviscerator line and rehanging the birds on the shackles of a cut-up line. More recently, equipment has been developed which automatically transfers the birds from one line to another. However, these newer machines are complicated and do not provide a system that is as simple, efficient and reliable as desired by the industry.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved apparatus and method for automatically transferring birds from one overhead conveyor system to another, particularly when the conveyor systems operate at different speeds or the birds are hung at different spacing on the conveyor lines.